Archive: February 1, 2009 - February 7, 2009

The alleged Ponzi scheme by Bernard L. Madoff has claimed several big local names as its victims. Nearly 250 Washington area names, including some of the region's most prominent and wealthiest business people, are on a new list of possible customers of the New York investment firm operated by...

Carrie Kenworthy of Manassas was laid off from her $80,000-a-year job as a mortgage loan officer in 2007. Then she tried to file for an extension in unemployment benefits in July. The Virginia Employment Commission denied her claim three times. Her appeals took more than two months because of...

UPDATED: 5:45 p.m. Washington area unemployment climbed to 4.7 percent in December, the highest level since 1993 but one of the lowest for a major metropolitan area. That compares with a jobless rate of 3 percent a year earlier and 4.4 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor...

Washington area companies are not immune to the recession. The Corporate Executive Board of Arlington is planning to cut or change about a fifth of the research products and services it provides to businesses, which will mean an undetermined number of layoffs, the company's chief executive told staff in...

Bethesda's EagleBank received $38.2 million from the Treasury Department in early December. The bank, which focuses on lending to local businesses, used roughly half the money to digest the acquisition of Fidelity & Trust Bank, a Bethesda rival with financial problems. And it has struggled to use the rest...

Automakers are revving up for a chance to get some face time with lawmakers in Washington this month at the 67th Washington Auto Show, reports staff writer Kendra Marr. In Detroit last month, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) was the lone federal legislator to grace the show, setting off a...

By Thomas Heath My 92-year-old mother motors around her two-bedroom, one-floor ranch home in Syracuse, N.Y., with the help of a walker and comforted by a lifetime of mementos, photographs (not enough of yours truly), her old furniture and the daily presence of my brother and sister, both of whom...